Clumsy Twit
by ForestRunner
Summary: FE8. Colm looks back at the moments leading up to him joining Eirika's troops. Neimi/Colm if you squint.


**Currently playing Fire Emblem:Sacred Stones. I can't seem to get past chap16, but I will! Someday... Hopefully soon... Anyways, I love this pairing, so much. The irony is that any pairing I like from the start is less favored or less written among fanfiction. Poor me, hahaha. XD**

**This is also my first time trying any fanfics for Fire Emblem. Usually I write Legend of Zelda stuff. Oh, and this is my first time seriously trying something in first person. I'm pretty satisfied, but you're the final judge.  
****I'd call this fic a drabble, but drabbles are only 100words. So, subconscious writing? Yea, that works. Read and enjoy!**

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_"Tell me boy, is this the path you've chosen for your life?"_

It...it wasn't by choice.

_"If this girl matters to you, you must quit this dark road."_

You think I'm happy like this? That I scavenging every moment of every day, wondering if I'll have stolen enough supplies to last the night, the week? Who do you think you are, barging in and frowning down upon me?

I still can't believe he had the nerve to tell me that. To this very day, I still can't stand that grim look on his face, that smug grin filled with egotistic sincerity. The makings of a complete know it all. I hate know-it-alls. The only reason I joined that troop was for _her_ sake. Everything I did was for her.

Her. An archer, prodigy in the making. She never missed her target, save the occasional bad stroke of luck. She lived with her grandfather, learned the ways of the bow, and had a bright future ahead of her. One of the best. I suppose I could've had the same possibility of an outcome, too, but I'm too much of a dilinquent at heart to be anything noteworthy. What can I say? Risky behaviour runs in my blood.

But she was amazing. A bubbly child, always laughing and skipping, smiling and sticking her nosey self everywhere she shouldn't. Never got in trouble, happily obedient. The typical adorable child that all the adults loved. Gods, it made me sick. At least she wasn't a genius. I don't think I would have been so willing to help her, if that was the case. Smart people were able to help themselves, but innocent kids like her? Euck, she's too helpless to do anything on her own. Only fair she gets a little boosting help from me every now and then.

When the village burned down, everything was catastrophic. I've hid from remembering this day for so long, I hardly remember the details. But some things you never forget. Like the cries and shrieks of dying or harmed victims. The smell of blood. And the smoke. Smoke, that engulfed everything, its grotesque stench clinging to every surface. The smell took me a week to thoroughly wash out of my clothes. Months later, the screams are still echoing inside my head.

There is stuff that slips your mind, though. Like what things looked like, the time of day, the words that were said. Emotions, however, never leave. I remember feeling lost the few days after. Hopelessly confused, unsure of what to do, and dragging around a pitiful girl that wouldn't stop crying. I never thought I'd see the girl without that stupid smile on her face, but here she was, bawling her eyes out and _so annoyingly wailing_. Loudly at that, too. Was it possible to miss seeing the girl happy? No, but I'd take that over miss crybaby here. I swear, if she wasn't cowering in her misery so loud, those bandits wouldn't have found us.

I had just gotten into the swing of things, stealing food and finding a new makeshift shelter each day, when she had to go and lose her mirror. Clumsy twit. Then again, she could never do anything right, could she? I thought her crying was finally coming to a halt, but the loss struck her anew, and I couldn't seem to get her to stop whining. She didn't even speak words, but it was obvious she missed that mirror. It was the only thing left from the village either of us had, if you didn't count the clothes off our backs. But then again, most of those rags were stolen from other villages, too...

I guess I could've been more compassionate when I saw her cry over that mirror, but sympathy in war only got a knife lodged in your throat. I know, because I saw it happen one night. Good thing she wasn't with me then, or she'd be all teary over that too.

With that mirror gone, nothing was productively done. If she wasn't eating our remaining rations I got her to eat, she was rocking in a corner crying. We stopped traveling, the possibility of being caught and trialed for theivery growing bigger every day we stayed in the same hideout. I'd learned that it was impossible for her to run out of tears. She once cried for hours about every possible thing until I coaxed her into a more soft sob, hoping she'd fall asleep. Even remarkably quieter, I couldn't get an ounce of sleep that night.

I had to stop this.

Slinking around the nearby village, I looked for rumors about the bandits' hideaway. Once I got a decent enough lead, I left her at our current hdieout, leaving her a list of things to do in case I was late. I knew she wouldn't get them done on her own, but it gave her _something_ to put her mind to instead of worry for me. I could handle her crying in my presence, but cradled in a corner, fragile and all alone? She was easy prey. I had to return. Not that I had any doubt.

Those bandits were easy picking. I ramshacked their hideout and not a single one had a clue. It was like they were all out ravenging a town instead of guarding their place. I was just about done when she appeared. It angered me. I gave her the simplist of instructions, to stay put until I returned, and she couldn't even do _that_ right! But, in the middle of enemy territory wasn't the time to start arguing. If she could suck up her tears, or at least most of them, for a few moments, then I could put aside my frustration with her for just as long.

When I returned to her the mirror, I expected to see her smile. It had occured to me at that moment how much I missed seeing her lips curved upwards. Before the village burned down, all she did was smile. Since that day, I hadn't seen so much on her face besides conflicted emotions, waiting to bubble up and spill over. She held that mirror, and the waterworks began.

And then that arrogant paladin interrupted us, bashully insulting me and giving us a rude farewell. I hate know-it-alls. He said they wouldn't save the two of us again. As if we even needed saving in the first place. But, I was slow to admit. A troop meant more people to keep an eye on her, right? Neimi was such a clutz, and it was beginning to become a handful.


End file.
